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Hopefully it uses modern mechanics rather than porting over archaic BS from 18ish years ago.

I have mixed feeling about this actually. The controls in the old Mafia felt a bit clunky even back in 2002 and they need changing, and of course they will be changed. However, it'd be a shame if this turned out to be a yet another 3rd person shooter with typical cover mechanics, bullet-sponge player/enemies, and auto-regenerating health. Despite of the clunkiness, I loved the unforgiving (sometimes even unfair!) nature of the shootouts in the original! I even liked the sluggish cars in the beginning of the game, because they made me appreciate the better ones that you got later on even more, and they kind of felt authentic... not that I've ever driven or even seen a Bolt Model B Ford Model A, so what do I know!

I'm sure that the remake is in good hands, but of course there's always a chance that the devs get a bit carried away with this task. One thing that I probably would not want to see is that they bring in some more "open-world" features - Mafia III was a worse game for that. Then again, I remember the original Mafia being criticised for not being GTA 1930's, but for me, Mafia is almost all about the story. I don't need to be distracted by too many side quests and I certainly don't want to run after collectibles and stuff. That doesn't mean that I don't want to see any side activities and a lot of little details in the game world (for example I always thought that the public transport system in the original Mafia was a really nice touch, even though it was hardly essential!), they just shouldn't steal the focus from the main thing; the story.

I thought cover-shooting and regenerating health fit the later Mafia games just fine, wouldn't mind seeing them in this remake. The cars should definitely be period-appropriately sluggish and unwieldy, but there's a way to do that while still having them be fun to drive. The original Mafia's cars just weren't fun to drive.

I liked Mafia a lot but there's plenty of room for improvement, so I'm looking forward to this one.

I have to admit that Mafia never did much for me, because the game always felt derivative of the mob movie genre, like Godfather fanfic with the serial numbers filed off - well written for a game, that sort of thing. I've not minded that with other games (many games clearly ape this series of films or that genre), but in this case the discrepancy in quality between the films the game was imitating and the game itself was bigger than it often is IMO, and I didn't particularly enjoy the gameplay, so the latter (gameplay) didn't compensate for the former (derivative setting, story).

Having said that, I'd be lying if I said the Mafia remake didn't look very appealing. Depending on how good it feels to play, I could imagine that the remake would work better for me.

I remember Mafia 1 being very much the first time we got a serious mob story with good production values in gaming, and it was a good one - at least from the vantage point of being a 19-year old when the game released. I haven't really played it since, so maybe the me of today is going to arch an eyebrow at that, but anyway - if you separate the story from the game, sure, either's not going to be very extraordinary, but the magic happened in the combination of the two. I think the unforgiving difficulty made it a frustrating pain in the ass but also seared into my brain the idea that everything in this gig was a hard scrabble fight for your life, with death always dogging you even when you thought you were clear of immediate danger. That, combined with how the story goes, made it extremely memorable.

I think I appreciated the smaller details more than the stupid combat, like when reloading a gun when you hadn't emptied all its chambers meant you lost those unspent bullets. I hope some of that returns in the remake, though I won't hold my breath. Recharging health vs. health packs doesn't make a terribly big difference to me, honestly, but I could do with less stupid difficulty.

Oh, I don't think Mafia's story was *bad*; it was reasonably well executed (it sleeps with the fishes, ba-dum tish!), but at the same time it was *exactly* what you'd expect from a mob story. The magic you mentioned, that didn't happen for me, but that may also be because I only played the game half a dozen years after it first came out, so it lacked the wow factor and the gameplay felt rather clunky. It's well possible that I would have liked the game much better if I'd played it when it was first released.

Absolutely! You're right about cover-shooting, I found it to be very enjoyable in Mafia 2 for example. I still disagree about regenerating health though, at least if it's done in a same way than in most games (Mafia 2 included); your health instantly starts regenerating when you hide behind a cover, so in most cases you just put your head down for a while, wait for a few seconds until your health is full, and then start the killing again. Gunfights would feel much more intense if you could only heal yourself outside combat. I suppose it's no gamebreaker for me though, whatever they choose to do.

Originally Posted by Thirith

I have to admit that Mafia never did much for me, because the game always felt derivative of the mob movie genre, like Godfather fanfic with the serial numbers filed off - well written for a game, that sort of thing.

Yeah, you've got a good point there actually - I don't actually think that the Mafia 1 script is a true masterpiece or anything either. It does recycle a lot of old mafia cliches from Godfather or whatever, and the story really is quite predictable, but maybe that's exactly what gives me such strong mafia vibes in the game. However, the execution of the story and how it all blended with the gameplay was something that I hadn't experienced before Mafia 1 - it was like watching an enjoyable mafia flick where you get to play the most fun parts, shootouts and car chases and so on. There was really nice variety in the missions too.

It's been at least ten years since I last played the first Mafia game though, so I hope it's not just the nostalgia talking!

My favourite part of Mafia ended up being the race that so many people hated. I hated it for a bit as well, but in the end I absolutely loved it! I realised that all the problems I'd had were my own fault, and after that it was magic. Then they nerfed the difficulty, so I didn't love it as much. I don't think the unskippable cutscene beforehand ever stopped being irritating, mind (although once I'd learned how to race, I wasn't seeing that quite so frequently :)

I would gladly have purchased a dedicated period racing game based on that.

I'm hoping whatever changes they make are more in line with Mafia 2 than Mafia 3. I can always go back and play the original whenever I want to, so it's not a big deal if they made it more Mafia 2 like mechanically.

And yes, the race was awesome. Especially pre-patch. TBH, I found the stealing the car mission that came before it to be way more of a PITA difficulty wise.